Chicago wheat futures ended much lower on Tuesday, as moisture levels in Russia increased ahead of the winter wheat sowing season. Corn and soybean both retreated on bearish outside markets.
December corn dipped 12.25 cents, or 2.8 percent, to 4.205 U.S. dollars per bushel. November soybean lost 6.5 cents, or 0.6 percent, to 9.99 dollars per bushel. December wheat plunged 17.75 cents, or 2.4 percent, to 7.0775 dollars per bushel.
The downbeat U.S. housing data released on Tuesday has heavily weighed on the market sentiment, the softening crude oil price and the rally in dollar have both contributed to set the weak tone for the commodity markets.
Traders noted that the wheat rally lost some steam as precipitation increased in parts of Russia and Ukraine this week, which is considered beneficial to the winter-wheat sowing this fall. But the unwelcome rainfall in Germany, which may continue into the wheat harvest season and reduce quality of wheat crops, has rekindled investors worries over the global wheat shortage, since Germany is the second largest wheat producer and a major wheat exporter in EU.
USDA announced late Monday that the 70 percent of corn crops in U.S. was rated good or excellent as of Aug. 22, which is higher than 69 percent a week earlier, and analyst expected a 1 percentage point drop. Meanwhile, the good to excellent rating for the U.S. soybean crops dropped 2 percentage points to 64 percent, which is in line with previous estimates.
